Now you and I, Aunt Jennie, know that men are silly things at best.  Of course I am grateful to Dr. Grant for looking after me so nicely, but why should he deserve such a lot of credit for it?  Don’t all the nice young men like to look after girls?  They enjoy it ever so much.  But somehow this Dr. Grant enjoys it without undue enthusiasm.  I am really ever so glad that he never looks, as so many of the others do, as if he were pining for the moment when he can lay his heart and fishy fees, which he never gets, at my feet.  He is just a splendid fellow, Aunt Jennie, who looks as strong and honest as the day is long.  We are all very fond of him.

“The only thing that hurts is that I have had none of the fishing,” said Daddy.  “I have made up my mind to return another year and let the Tobique take care of itself.  By the time I am well enough to fish there will not be another salmon that will rise, this year.”

“No, Mr. Jelliffe,” answered the doctor.  “The salmon are beginning to cease their interest in flies, but the trout are biting well.”

“I have nothing to say against trout,” said Daddy, “but I feel like crying for a salmon as a baby cries for the moon.  There is not much in life outside of salmon and Wall Street.  Even when I have to go to California I troll a little on Puget Sound, but it doesn’t come up to fly-fishing.”

I left them, deeply engaged in this absorbing subject.  I think I have discovered something rather noteworthy in this salmon fishing.  It is the effect that our interest in the matter has on the population.  To them a fish means a cod; it is the only fish they know.  All others are undeserving of the name, and are compelled to appear under the guise of their proper appellations.  The taking of fish is a serious business, and one that does not pay very handsomely, as far as these people are concerned.  Therefore they cannot understand that one may catch fish for amusement, and so we are enwrapped in a halo of mystery.  Dr. Grant has told me that some of them have darkly wondered whether Daddy was not investigating this island with a view to buying it for weird purposes of his own, such as obtaining a corner on codfish and raising the price of this commodity all over the world.  Isn’t it funny that even here some notion of trusts and corners should have penetrated?  Of course they would be delighted to have the price of cod raised; it is the dream of their lives.

But most of them have accepted us as natural, if freaky, phenomena with which they were previously unacquainted, and which have thus far shown no objectionable features.  They have become ever so friendly, yet never intrusive, and I like them ever so much.

That poor fellow Dick was shipped back to his miserable little island, two weeks ago, happy in the possession of a useful right arm.  It was quite touching to hear him speak of the doctor.  And speaking about Dick reminds me of the man’s wife, with those peculiar ideas of hers.  You remember about them, don’t you?  Would you believe, Auntie dear, that all the other women about here are just as bad?  They seem to be matchmakers of the most virulent sort.  They boldly ask me if I am going to marry the doctor, and when, the poor silly things, and if I deny the impeachment they bring forth little smiles of unbelief.